


The Mechanics of Healing Spells

by ghostchibi



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Injury, Descriptions of Injury, M/M, Manuela appears for a grand total of five sentences, Pre-Relationship, also this fic has a target audience of me and like three people, but this is more of a semi-admission of feelings, don't look at me, technically pre-relationship bc no discussion of a relationship happens, they talk while Celeste heals an open wound and Dimitri bleeds all over stuff, very romantic and all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-03 22:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20460620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostchibi/pseuds/ghostchibi
Summary: Perhaps healing spells may be affected by their casters. Dimitri thinks so, but Celeste doesn't.What better time to bring up the topic than when being healed?





	The Mechanics of Healing Spells

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is certainly the exact opposite of my last fe3h fic which had a target audience of half the fandom
> 
> I thought that maybe healing spells could give off a different feeling based on who casted it? not enough where it would cause differences in effectiveness or something, but it could affect the recipient's emotions or give them a different feeling/aura based on how the caster feels or what kind of personality the caster has. I thought about how that would differentiate healing between Mercedes and my oc Celeste, since Mercedes seems more reassuring in her healing while Celeste is more of a "you are not going to die if I have any say in it" kind of healer.
> 
> anyway. have some gays.

"I have noticed a difference between Mercedes' healing and yours," Dimitri says, apropos of nothing at all. Except maybe for the fact that Dimitri is sitting on a stool while Celeste tends to a gash on his arm propped up on the medical table, carefully disinfecting the injury before beginning the process of healing it closed.

It wasn’t as though Dimitri had been careless. He’s left his single-minded anger somewhere aside; not fully discarded, as it may never be until he attains their revenge, but no longer overtaking his every thought. This injury had been the result of a stroke of bad luck, Dimitri’s armor shattering from a particularly forceful fortress knight’s hammer followed by the knight’s companion striking with their lance. A quick healing had prevented him from bleeding out, but the wound had reopened and Dimitri had hastily been pushed in the direction of the medical tent. So now he sits in front of Celeste Asagao, one of the most skilled mages he has ever met, quietly watching the man work until he had been struck by a sudden thought.

Celeste glances up at Dimitri for a moment with an odd look on his face, then looks back down quickly to continue his work.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing, Your Highness?" Celeste asks. Dimitri clenches his jaw and digs his fingers slightly into his thigh when Celeste has to press harder to ensure the disinfectant reaches deeply enough.

"Neither. Just an-" --a slow and loud exhale through the nose signals more pain from Dimitri -- "-an observation."

"Expand on that for me? You can't just tell a man he heals differently from others and leave it at that."

"I can."

Celeste pokes Dimitri in the elbow, far away from his injury, with the blunt end of his tweezers in a way that could be an accident but likely isn't.

"I am unsure of how to explain it," he admits. "It's a difference in feeling. Not so much that I could feel a difference with my eyes closed, but there is a difference."

"Visual bias," Celeste replies succinctly, gently pulling Dimitri's arm outward and away from his body so that he can put it into the proper position to begin healing. "What kind of a difference, though?"

"I do not know. I sense... something different, between the two of you. In intent, perhaps?"

"I think all healers have the same intent, Your Highness. 'Get this poor bastard to stop dying' is the general consensus, I believe."

"Well, yes, but perhaps not with that same exact tone?"

"I'm sure Mercedes would never call an injured soldier a 'poor bastard,' yes," Celeste laughs, and straightens Dimitri's arm. He presses two fingers lightly at the edge of the cut and begins to cast a healing spell. He pushes the skin along so that it closes correctly, working slowly, and while his eye is glued to the injury, Dimitri can feel the corner of Celeste's vision focused on his face.

"Perhaps it is a knowledge the healer's personality, as well. I do not sense this difference in other healers, but I have been healed by you and Mercedes countless times, and I am well acquainted with both of you. Is that enough proof, Celeste?"

"Maybe," he replies, and is silent for a little longer as he focuses on closing up the wound from the inside out. Dimitri can feel muscle tissue reconnecting where it had been severed; it will always feel painful and _wrong_, the process of repair sped up so quickly.

The silence continues, and Dimitri figures that Celeste will not break it. He looks away, because Celeste had suggested before that to see the process could potentially cause more pain due to becoming upset. How that works, Dimitri isn't quite sure, and he continues to clutch his thigh the same through the process.

"I believe your healing holds a different prayer behind it."

"I don't pray when I heal. Mercedes may, but I don't."

"Ah, prayer is the wrong word then. I... well, I do not know how else to put it. With Mercedes, her healing gives a sense of warmth. To put it into words... something akin to 'you are going to be just fine?'"

"That sounds like Mercedes," Celeste concedes, now halfway through healing the deepest of the cut. The surface of Dimitri's skin is still broken, but to heal the outside and leave the inside injured is the easiest means to cause accidental infection or possibly worse. The bleeding has lessened, although it still leaks and stains the tips of Celeste's fingers. "I think she's said those words before."

"Yes. Her healing feels of reassurance, I suppose." Dimitri chances a glance at his arm, and it looks much less terrible now than it had less than ten minutes ago. Pain spikes when Celeste holds the edges of the wound closed in one spot nearer to the inside of his elbow, and Dimitri looks away again. "Meanwhile, yours..."

Celeste's, which he is receiving right now. The holy magic continues to mend the tear, closing off broken blood vessels to prevent any more blood from spilling. Celeste pauses to wipe it away before continuing his work.

"Yes, Your Highness?"

"...it feels of defiance."

Dimitri looks back to Celeste just in time to watch Celeste's eye briefly flicker up to meet his gaze. He blinks, and then the brown eye swivels back down.

"Defiance," Celeste repeats. "I'm not quite sure what to make of that."

"Admittedly, I have received most of my healing from you on the battlefield than off. That may have something to do with it, but... your healing does not reassure. It defies what is to come. Whenever Mercedes heals me, I feel that I will be okay. When you heal me, I feel that you have pulled me away from death's grasp."

Celeste's hands had actually stopped working. His single visible eye stares at Dimitri, wide in surprise.

"I have heard you speaking to your patients, when you think that they cannot hear you. You mutter under your breath. Perhaps it is not prayer, but..."

Dimitri smiles as warmly as he can manage. His expressions feel wrong after spending so long without them, after he steeled himself and wiped his face of all emotion. Celeste does not flinch back, only watch Dimitri with a look that he has trouble placing.

"You heal and defend with every drop of strength in your body. You heal as though you are raising your knives against death itself. You truly remind me of a lion, defending its pride."

"The ears and mask are only to look pretty," Celeste replies rather flippantly. He's referring to his lion-ear headdress and the metal face protector etched in the design of a lion baring its fangs. They are an easy mark to see Celeste by, gold glinting in the light, and serve just as much a practical purpose as an aesthetic one.

"I think they match you quite well, Celeste," Dimitri laughs, and bites back a hiss as Celeste returns to healing his wound.

"Thank you, Your Highness. I do like how they accent my appearance."

And a rather lovely appearance it is. Dark hair in an interesting combination of tied up and let down, the hair on his right allowed to cascade down his shoulder and the on his left pulled up into a bun wrapped around the rest of his ponytail. Long bangs flow over one eye, his blind one, blocking it from view without limiting his vision. The visible brown eye, so dark that it almost appears black, is framed with a silver-rim monocle and a chain that hangs between it and his ear. On the battlefield he wears long white sleeves but here he has foregone them, showing the dark purple folded-front top that Dimitri has come to learn is a traditional article of clothing among Celeste's people.

"Ah, damn," Celeste mutters when he tilts his head to get a better look at the slowly-closing wound and his bangs fall into his other eye. Without thinking, Dimitri raises his uninjured arm and sweeps his hair back, tucking as much of it as he can behind Celeste's ear.

Seeing a full, unobstructed view of Celeste's face makes Dimitri freeze. Both of Celeste's eyes immediately jump to Dimitri's face, fingers still resting gently against Dimitri's arm. The uncovered eye is blind, clouded over white over most of the iris, with a ring of visible brown around the edge. Dimitri isn't sure why he hides it under his hair; is he afraid of others seeing? He had not done such when they were younger, his bangs cut short and both eyes visible. There is also a scar under Celeste's ear, not very large, but noticeably starting somewhere behind his ear and coming down to the top of his jaw. That was not there before by Dimitri's memory, but perhaps he had forgotten?

"Dimitri?" Celeste asks, and it's then that Dimitri realizes that he still has his hand resting against Celeste's cheekbone, knuckles pressed to skin. He pulls his hand back hastily, and the look on Celeste's face does not change.

"I apologize, I-"

"Um, thank you," Celeste responds with, before quickly averting his eyes and resuming his treatment on Dimitri's arm. Dimitri can feel his face burn red in embarrassment; he hadn't intended to do that, even to move Celeste's hair he should have asked rather than reached out so quickly. He's so distracted that he doesn't notice Celeste finish healing the last of the wound, and only reacts when he feels damp fingertips touch where the gash once was. The skin there is still sensitive, and Dimitri flinches.

"Let that rest for a short while," Celeste instructs him, his fingers pulling back as soon as he feels the muscles in Dimitri's arm jump. Instead he touches the side of Dimitri's arm, more reassurance than physical support. His bangs are still swept back, and when Dimitri makes eye contact with him-

Celeste moves rather quickly. He leans forward, and Dimitri pulls back in surprise. Both of them freeze in place, Dimitri with his eyes wide and Celeste with his eyes half-closed.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"No, you merely startled me."

Dimitri shifts, leans in toward Celeste closer than they had been earlier, meets the mage half-way. The hand that had been touching Dimitri's arm now covers his wrist, warm against his bare skin. He isn't sure what to expect, or what he's even doing right now, but when Celeste returns his gesture it comes with a press of their foreheads together.

Seeing another's eyes so closely is already an odd experience. To see Celeste's, even with their heads leaving their faces in shadow, feels much more intense than it should. His eyes are pretty, Dimitri muses to himself. They look different from Dimitri's own, nearly pitch-black brown and that ring of white that covers much of one eye, against Dimitri's single ice-blue.

On any other given day, Dimitri would not be doing this. He would not feel allowed to do this. He had noticed long ago, all the way back in their Academy days, exactly what Celeste was being good-naturedly teased about by his friends. He had known, pushed it aside as a youth because he had been focused on revenge and only revenge, remembered it when he had met Celeste again years later. They had both changed, Dimitri into something monstrous and Celeste into something noble. He had ignored it until now because of that monstrosity, the mere idea a joke to him that anyone could ever look at him and see anything other than a disgusting, lowly rat that brought death and suffering in his wake. So why now, when he has noticed every single gesture of affection Celeste has laid before him and refused to answer to them, when he still feels there is nothing left of him to redeem no matter how much he may change from the monster he was before?

Perhaps it is watching Celeste's healing. It has been a while since he has had time to properly watch Celeste work. All of the other times had been quick, perfunctory, without unnecessary words. Dimitri would refuse to accept any further, never watched the way Celeste would gentle his fingers, never spoke of anything but how he received the wound and whether a particular movement hurt more or not. There may be healing in observing a healer at work, in appreciating the care they place in tending to their patients.

Perhaps it is that message again, the feeling of vicious protection that accompanies Celeste's healing. To know he is by Dimitri's side, defending him, knives drawn, ready to face whatever may challenge the crown prince.

"Thank you."

"Whatever for?"

"As... as reassuring as it may be to be told that I will be okay, I also appreciate the motivation which comes from being told I will always have your support."

"Are we back on that discussion again?"

It's hard to talk to someone with their face so close. Dimitri laughs, lifts his healed arm, turns his wrist, curls his fingers around Celeste's hand so that they are palm to palm. A slow, long exhale leaves Celeste's lips.

"Yes, we are."

"I'm not sure if there really is much of a difference to my healing, but I also have never healed myself for very long, so..."

A noise at the flap of the tent catches both of their attention. Celeste pulls back, the movement dropping his hair over his face again; in one smooth motion he is once again an attentive Faerghus army medic. Dimitri's head snaps to his left at the same time, and enters... Manuela, the very last person he expected to see.

"Celeste, we need some help with one of the injured. I was wondering if your little magic experiments might give us a miracle?" she asks. She does not comment on the fact that Dimitri and Celeste are still holding hands somewhat, or that they are sitting closer than necessary for Celeste to be healing Dimitri.

"Of course. I'll take my tools," Celeste replies instantly. He takes up his role quickly and without much comment, and his hand leaves Dimitri's to snatch up his portable medical kit in the same moment that he stands.

Manuela holds the flap open for him as he exits, and as it falls Dimitri realizes that Celeste had left without so much as a word to him. The mark of a serious and devoted doctor, Dimitri muses, to forget all else, including the fact that he is leaving the crown prince's presence, in order to focus on the priority task.

It does, however, leave Dimitri awkwardly alone in Celeste's medical tent. He gets up, picks up his removed gauntlet and glove from the nearby table, and refastens it over the formerly injured arm. A few movements to test that the muscles and tendons are not misaligned, a moment to take stock of the room to ensure he is not forgetting anything else. A sigh leaves Dimitri, and despite the sudden feeling of loneliness that tugs at his heart, he determines that he is much better now than when he first entered the tent.


End file.
